“Life has grown desiccated and cramped, crying out for the rediscovery of the fountainhead. But the fountainhead can only be found if the conscious mind will suffer itself to be led back to the “children’s land,” there to receive guidance from the unconscious as before.” – Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy

This post is an appendix to Rescuing Permission from the Past. Here I present an example from history that elucidates how, exactly, one might pull ideas from the past and reintegrate them into a modern framework. Today, we’ll be looking at the Renaissance and an odd bit of philosophy called Hermeticism.

I chose the Renaissance because it’s typically referred to as the beginning of Western culture’s enlightenment from the dross and dreary medieval ages. The Renaissance marks the beginning of modern, rational thought. However, the Renaissance wasn’t, exactly, a time of clear-cut, rational scientific thought.

In fact, as with most developments of Western thought, the Renaissance owed a large part of its intellectual impotence from the practice of magic, occult concepts, and other bizarre strains of thought. Hermeticism, combined with alchemy, is one of the essential intellectual building blocks that comprise the foundation of modern science, and we owe it to the Renaissance for giving these interesting ideas a sandbox to play in, so to speak.

This post is broken up into two parts. The first part is a general overview of Hermeticism and the Renaissance. The second part, more to our original goal, outlines how Hermetic ideas—through the practical framework of alchemy—recontextualized forgotten wisdom, pushing Western philosophy, culture, and thought into novel territory that would eventually yield modern science.

Part I

First, Hermeticism. To quote the Encyclopedia Britannica, “[t]he aim of Hermeticism, like that of Gnosticism (a contemporary religious-philosophical movement), was the deification or rebirth of mortals through the knowledge (gnosis) of the one transcendent God, the world, and humankind.”

In the most general sense, Hermeticism was an underground branch (er, root?) of philosophy that surfaced around the 2nd century CE. The central texts, called The Corpus Hermeticum, were works of revelation on occult, religious, and philosophical ideas ascribed to a dude named Hermes Trismegistus; however, it isn’t clear who Trismegistus actually was, when he lived, or where he came from.

Some say he’s one of the many iterations of the Greek god Hermes; some say an iteration of the Egyptian god Thoth. Most likely, Hermes Trismegistus is a pseudonym for an unknown Hellenistic monk. My guess, the name Hermes Trismegistus was a way for the author to express radical ideas about the cosmos without fear of excommunication or death.

Hermeticism is interesting because it serves as an example of how “weirder” strains of thought are never far away from the epicenter of drastic intellectual change. In fact, Hermeticism proves how bizarre, occult, and psychedelic thought often develops in the shadow of rational thought.

We’ll dig into Hermetic ideas in depth later on in this post, so for now, let’s settle on loosely defining Hermeticism as an obscure, often occult, philosophical branch that introduced exotic and alternative descriptions of the universe.

Next, the Renaissance.

Again, we won’t be looking at the entirety of this vast cultural movement. Rather, I’ll briefly outline three Renaissance concepts: classicism, humanism, and prisca theologia—a Latin phrase meaning “ancient theology”— and how these three concepts built the intellectual house for Hermetic ideas to live in.

As a huge fan of Francis Yates, let’s start with this quote from Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition that sums up Renaissance classicism well:

“The great forward movements of the Renaissance all derive their vigor, their emotional impulse, from looking backwards… the past was always better than the present, and the process was revival, rebirth, renaissance of antiquity.”

Classicism created a longing for the ancient, less “diluted” cultures of antiquity. Classicism was the intellectual fabric most of the Renaissance was embroidered onto. It created a general interest in recontextualizing ancient cultures.

Secondly, and a direct result of classicism, is humanism. Humanism, summed up, is “the idea that man was the center of his own universe, and [that] people should embrace human achievements in education, classical arts, literature, and science.”

Classicism, generally, created an interest in ancient cultures, and paved the road for more specific intellectual movements, like humanism. Humanism, or basically, a resurging interest in the classical liberal arts and science, created a market for finding, translating, and printing copies of manuscripts, scrolls, and discourses from all over the ancient world.

While this mad dash for ancient knowledge was underway, there were certain intellectual figures operating under our final concept—prisca theologia.

Prisca theologia is “[a] doctrine that asserts that a single, true theology exists, which threads through all religions, and which was anciently given by God to man”. Translating ancient manuscripts during the Renaissance was, in certain circles, fueled by the promise of eventually finding the “true” knowledge of God. This idea is critical because it gave an immense sense of gravity to translating otherwise obscure religious and philosophical manuscripts (enter The Corpus Hermeticum).

Classicism, humanism, and prisca theologia are ideas that set the stage, and in some ways even directed, the spread of Hermetic literature in the West, so it’s important we establish a baseline for these concepts. Classicism begets humanism, humanism begets prisca theologia, prisca theologia begets Hermeticism.

I pull these ideas together not to draw a reductive, linear progression from one idea to the next, but to illustrate how, starting with classicism, the intellectual playfield was set up (more or less) at the time of the discovery of Hermetic literature.

Hermetic literature begins with The Corpus Hermeticum (TCH). TCH contains 17 books, many of which are structured as Platonic dialogues.

Subsequently, because of the unknown author, publication date, and exotic nature of its content, TCH held serious weight in certain Renaissance intellectual circles (I would bet the prisca theologia bias had something to do with it as well).

Such as it was, the esoteric content and lack of immediate empirical evidence to properly date the manuscripts resulted in a theory among certain intellectuals that Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses; that he was an ancient Egyptian philosopher of sacred and divine wisdom.

In fact, Cosimo de Medici (who was near death at the time Gemistus Pletho brought TCH before the Florentine Council), famously instructed Marsilio Ficino to put the translations of Plato on hold so Cosimo would be alive to read the first Latin edition of The Hermetic Corpus!

(It wasn’t until the father/son duo Isaac and Méric Casaubon that the actual date of publication was discovered through rigorous philological investigation—a scientific methodology not yet invented during the time of Ficino’s work.)

TCH isn’t, in fact, a pre-ancient treatise crafted by a forgotten contemporary of Moses, it was the work of some unknown monk written between 200 and 300 CE. This fact was unknown to many Renaissance thinkers, and because of this gross misdating of publication, TCH was considered by many to be an antecedent to Christian thought, an undeniable piece of pious philosophy (pia philosophia) and a crucial piece of evidence confirming the existence of a prisca theologia.

So, what was it about these books that convinced some of the greatest minds of the age they were a set of prophetic discourses from a contemporary of Moses? The best way to understand is to sample its language.

Good, free translations aren’t hard to come by, thanks to the internet. I personally prefer the G.R.S. Mead translations, which I’ll be quoting. We’ll start with verse four of the book titled Pœmandres:

“[4]. E’en with these words, His aspect changed, and straightway, in the twinkling of an eye, all things were opened to me, and I see a Vision limitless, all things turned into Light—sweet, joyous Light. And I became transported as I gazed. But in a little while, Darkness came settling down on part of it, awesome and gloomy, coiling in sinuous fold, so that methought it like unto a snake. And then the Darkness changed into some sort of Moist Nature, tossed about beyond all power of words, belching out smoke as from a fire, and groaning forth a wailing sound that beggars all description. And after that, an outcry inarticulate came forth from it, as though it were a Voice of Fire.

Pretty interesting stuff, no? Quite a different meal from the bland, unleavened language of the Bible. This verse sticks out as a rather psychedelic passage, apparently describing a moment of personal revelation.

Immediately following, in verse five, we get:

[5]. Thereon out of the light…a Holy Word [logos] descended upon that Nature. And upwards to the height from the Moist Nature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too. The Air, too, being light, followed after the Fire; from out the Earth-and-Water rising up to Fire so that it seemed to hang therefrom. But Earth-and-Water stayed so mingled each with other, that Earth from Water no one could discern. Yet were they moved to hear by reason of the Spirit-Word [logos] pervading them.”

This verse, to my mind’s eye, serves a hidden esoteric function, as it describes aspects of and interrelations between the four essential elements of natural magic.

In any case, it’s pretty weird shit. Imagine being a monk, devoted to translating various manuscripts, (most of which are probably boring as fuck), then, suddenly, you stumble across TCH. No wonder Cosimo, Ficino, and many others, were enraptured.

Hermeticism’s unique worldview and language would go on to provide a nutrient-dense linguistic, imagistic, and intellectual substrate that germinated the seeds of modern scientific thought.

Part II

At this point, we’ll be further investigating direct passages of TCH, where we’ll be exposed to the idea that man is God’s co-creator, not his subjugate. This idea fueled alchemists, a group of thinkers that would eventually create modern science. This serves as a great example of how recontextualized forgotten wisdom can catalyze real-world change. In this case, real-world change is a better understanding of science.

Incorrectly assumed to be an ancient book of divine wisdom, TCH was reintegrated into various magical practices that influenced some of the greatest thinkers of our age. One of those magical practices, and the one we’re focusing on here, was alchemy. Hermeticism and alchemy are invariably intertwined because their goals are sympathetic in many ways, and they share the same intellectual space.

For example, Hermeticism and alchemy are both concerned with transmutation; the former, transmutation of the soul; the latter, transmutation of spirit from matter. As monotheism and science derive impetus and authority from obedience to external processes, Hermeticism and alchemy derive impetus and authority from personal experimentation.

It was unheard of to be a “true” alchemist and not have been subjected to or at least be nominally familiar with TCH. It served as a catalyst for a certain type of Renaissance intellectual, whose imagination and need for wisdom exceeded the boundaries of mainstream Christian academics.

A brief overview of alchemy is inevitable at this point.

No doubt you’ve heard the term. Alchemy is a pretty ubiquitous concept in our culture, although it’s oft misrepresented. It’s less Fullmetal Alchemist and more Isaac Newton. Alchemists were, for all intents and purposes, proto-scientists, or scientists doomed to existence before the scientific theory was invented.

“True” alchemists were not at all concerned with the transmutation of base metals into gold. Rather, the alchemists’ plight was transmuting latent spiritual force from matter through standardized procedure, observation, and experimentation. The only people trying to turn base metals into gold were con men, charlatans, or idiots.

(As a hilarious side note, modern science has completed the program of the “poser” alchemist. We’ve figured out a way to transmute various base metals into gold by methods of particle acceleration and bombardment. We have discovered, at long last, how to turn lead into gold!)

Alchemy, at its lowest resolution, is a form of proto-chemistry dressed up in whacky language. At its highest, it is an internal and external process of transformation, detailing the cycles of life, death, and rebirth intrinsic to all matter residing in the physical dimension.

You see, the alchemist was convinced that spirit resided in matter. It was the goal of the alchemist to discover and standardize the procedure of unlocking this latent spiritual energy via alchemy. Alchemy, developed in private practice over decades of dedicated work, is a series of 12 steps that would create the infamous philosopher’s stone by breaking down matter to its most essential components.

The philosopher’s stone is a curious magical concept. The common misconception was and still is, unfortunately, that the primary purpose of the philosopher’s stone, and by extension the entire program of alchemy, was to turn base metals into gold or to grant immortality. These are trifling examples of the many uses for the philosopher’s stone.

The philosopher’s stone of the “true” alchemist is esoteric in nature, a transdimensional object containing the very mystery of life itself. It wasn’t a profane stone, per se, but more of a metaphorical stone of all-knowing and all-becoming.

If you wanted food, it could become bread; if you had thirst, it could become water; if you were cold, it could become a fur coat; if you wanted to know the nature of God, you need only ask, and the stone would reveal the inner mechanics of the Cosmos….

Obviously, such a stone does not exist. But to the dedicated alchemist, burning, mixing, diluting, and purifying various substances in secret, the promise of all-potential and ultimate knowledge was simply a matter of more precise procedure, methodology, and application of will.

The philosopher’s stone was the metaphorical symbol of the promise that mankind could escape the “machine of fate” through directed will and longsuffering effort.

Where does Hermeticism play into this?

Well, Hermeticism was one of the many linguistic matrices through which alchemical ideas were expressed. In this way, Hermetic philosophy and language, in part, allowed the practicing alchemist to articulate his ideas and notions on a linguistic and imagistic level.

Alchemists are one of the strongest historical examples of a group of thinkers that looked into the obscure, muddy waters of ancient thought, and reintegrated those ideas into a modern, scientific framework. The result was scientific rationalism.

But first, I’ll outline a central Hermetic concept that gave permission to the Renaissance alchemist for digging into the mysteries of nature.

This idea is the divinity of human beings. TCH is resplendent with language that lifts the status of mankind to Godhood. This idea represents a heretical break from typical Hellenistic thought of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Whereas the Christian program was one of subjugation to God’s will, Hermeticism suggests that mankind’s potential is as God’s co-equal brother.

Let’s turn to verses twelve and thirteen of Pœmandres:

[12]. But All-Father Mind, being Life and Light, did bring forth Man co-equal to Himself, with which whom He fell in love, as being His own child; for [Man] was beautiful beyond compare, the Image of his Sire. In very truth, God fell in love with his own Form; and on [Man] bestowed all of His formations.

[13]. And when he gazed upon what the Enformer [sic] had created in the Father, [Man] too wished to enform; and [so] assent was given him by the Father. Changing his state to the formative sphere, in that he was to have his whole authority, he gazed upon his Brother’s creatures. They fell in love with him and gave him each a share of his own ordering. And after that [Man] had well learned their essence and had become a sharer in their nature, had had a mind to break right through the Boundary of their spheres, and to subdue the might of that which pressed upon the Fire.

The implication here is that Man can eventually understand the ordering of the Cosmos as God does because Man inherently possesses the co-equal responsibility of creation with God and God’s angels. This gave the alchemist religious permission to conduct his magical, often occult, experiments without fear of reproach from God.

Furthermore, near the end of verse thirteen, “…[Man] had well learned their essence…” refers to the hierarchy of angles that delineates God’s power, and how Man shares the techniques of ordering and creation with God’s formative angels.

(For an in-depth explanation of how medieval cosmogony works, I suggest Viktor Ryberg’s Magic of the Medieval Ages.)

To the Renaissance alchemist, these verses provide explicit permission for unlocking the mysteries of creation. Essentially, it was viewed as permission to tamper with reality through alchemy—it’s the birthright of Man, after all.

It’s important to note that alchemists did NOT rely on the authority of previously established thinkers. Many of them pulled examples, arguments, and concepts from the fringes of thought, not from the pre-established Christian doctrine.

The Renaissance alchemist would have used Hermetic ideas as linguistic permission to conduct his various experiments. Alchemists during the Renaissance looked into the past, through sources like TCH, to reintegrate radical concepts into their modern worldview.

Specifically, recontextualizing the idea that man is God’s co-creator would have been the perfect place to couch experiments with matter. The notion that rational discovery is facilitated by manipulating various substances is the seed of chemistry.

In a reductive, but not wholly untrue way, one could argue that alchemy helped create modern science. Which is to say that something wholly irrational, magical even, can create something rational.

Famous alchemists include people like, Maria the Jewess (credited with creating modern distillation apparatus), Jean Baptista van Helmont who discovered carbon dioxide, Ge Hong, who accidentally created proto-gunpowder trying to find the Philosopher’s Stone, and Isaac Newton, whose achievements in science include trifling contributions like the foundation of classical mechanics.

All of these alchemists contributed, in a very real way, to the increase of human understanding. And they didn’t do it from a place of enlightened rationality (that shit hadn’t been invented yet), they did it from a strong desire to truly know, which isn’t the most rational place.

Alchemists, the “real” alchemists, pulled their inspiration from the dark, bizarre, mystic side of life, not purely from the light of previously established knowledge. They willingly looked into obscure texts from the ancient past to recontextualize modern life. All of the alchemists I mentioned above were given intellectual space for new and radical ideas because they chose untraditional methods of “achieving enlightenment.”

Alchemy and Hermeticism are unique examples of how we, in today’s context, might be able to recontextualize “forgotten” knowledge. We have the internet on our side, so finding obscure and bizarre modes of thought isn’t that hard! The difficulty will come from weeding out the total bullshit.

If we operate under the idea that some of the most rational discoveries of mankind were the result of irrational thought, I think that leaves modern people with a lot of hope.

We don’t need to have all the answers or be perfect in our methodology. We simply have to carry on the torch of real understanding, which doesn’t rely on external authority. It comes from within—from Above.

Rational modes of thinking rarely come from rational ideological substrates. And the greatest changes to our understanding of reality rarely come from a flash of rational thought. Rational thought rarely allows room for innovative ideas. I find it evident that most of the rigid science we take for granted has its roots in irrational, and oftentimes magical, thinking.

So, when we look to remedy the ailments of modern culture or to innovate our current culture, I think it helps to look at the strange, the weird, the occult, the psychedelic. Who knows? Maybe the radical ideas we need to catalyze global change will come from the alchemical wedding of rational scientific thought and pure magic?

It’s worth a shot, I’d say.

(Featured pic is a woodcut from Hieronymus Braunschweig, Das Buch Zu Distillieren, Strassburg, 1519)

An Appendix